LING2040 Languages in Contact: Syllabus (1st semester, 2008-09)

• Lecture notes linked to this page are initially those from 2007-08, but will be updated shortly before/after each lecture
• Topics are subject to change
• Please download the course description and notes here.

1. Sept. 3 Introduction: challenges and opportunities: why study contact languages?
    Forms of language contact; Code-mixing and borrowing; substrate influence

2. Sept 10 Language shift and substrate influence
Substrate influence in Cantonese; Singapore Colloquial English

3. Sept. 17 The nature of pidgins
    Chinese Pidgin English

4. Sept. 24 From pidgin to creole
    Creole Universals and the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis

Hawaiian pidgin and Hawaiian Creole English

<Tutorial 1: Sept. 22-26>

5. Oct. 8 Creole formation: alternative views
French-based creoles: Haitian and Mauritian

<Reading Week>

6. Oct. 22 midterm quiz (multiple choice + short answers);

<Tutorial 2: Oct. 20-27>

7. Oct. 29 Creole Morphology; Macau Portuguese creole

8. Nov. 5 Creole orthography, literacy and literature

9. Nov. 12 The post-Creole continuum

<tutorial 3: Nov. 11-14>

10. Nov. 19 Review

11. Nov. 26 Final quiz (multiple choice + short answers)